This invention relates to game playing methods for gaming machines such as slot machines and video poker machines. More particularly, the present invention relates to hardware and methods for allowing gaming machines to provide gaming information services in a network of gaming machines.
A typical gaming machine includes a wide variety of constituent devices. Some examples include lights, slot reels, ticket printers, card readers, speakers, bill validators, coin acceptors, display panels, key pads, bonus wheels, and button pads. Groups of these devices provide the features which together present a game. Typically these devices are built into the gaming machine.
Modern gaming machines typically utilize a master gaming controller to control various combinations of devices to allow a player to play a game on the gaming machine. For example, game play on a gaming machine usually requires a player to input money or indicia of credit into the gaming machine, indicate a wager amount, and initiate game play. These steps require the gaming machine to operate input devices including bill validators and coin acceptors to accept money into the gaming machine and recognize user inputs from devices including key pads and button pads to determine the wager amount and initiate game play.
Multiple gaming machines can be linked together via a communication network to provide various gaming services such as progressive game services. When a gaming machine is connected to a network, information about the status of the gaming machine may be sent to a remote location and information, including operating instructions for the gaming machine, may be received from the remote location. Typically, a separate game server, such as workstation or mainframe, provides one or more gaming services to the gaming machines connected to the network.
For progressive game play, the amount of money entered into a group of gaming machines may be pooled together to provide a larger jackpot as part of a wide area progressive network. As money is deposited in an individual gaming machine, this information can be relayed over a communication network to a progressive game server at some central location where the total amount of money in the jackpot is tracked. The information on the progressive jackpot may be sent out over the wide area progressive network to display signs displaying the jackpot amount and to gaming machines in the network. When a player playing a game on a gaming machine in the progressive network wins the progressive jackpot, a signal is sent from the gaming machine to the progressive game server and the jackpot is reset to some initial amount. In addition to progressive games, gaming machine networks may provide various other bonus games that involve a number of gaming machines participating for a common goal.
Accounting is another example of a gaming service which may be provided to a group of gaming machines by a game server. A group of gaming machines provided in a casino may be linked together to form a casino area network. Many current gaming machines contain player tracking devices, including card readers, display panels, and key pad interfaces, that allow a player playing a game on a gaming machine to enter information into the gaming machine. Using the casino area network, the player tracking information entered into the gaming machine by the player may be sent to a player account server, which is usually a separate PC, workstation, or mainframe, at a remote location different from the gaming machine. Further, other information about the status of the gaming machine including the amount of usage and whether the gaming machine is operating properly may also be sent via the casino area network to a remote accounting game server.
To provide a network service to a group of gaming machines, the gaming machines are connected in some manner. A group of gaming machines may be connected together in a daisy chain or a loop with information propagated up and down the chain or around the loop via connections between communication boards located within each gaming machine. Multiple loops or chains of gaming machines connected together may form a gaming machine network. Each entity in the network that receives and transmits messages is a “node.” Usually, within the chain or loop in the network, one entity coordinates the communication of information within the network. This “master” node, which is usually a separate remote server, transmits and receives messages that coordinate the required information flow needed to provide a particular network service including accounting services for bonus games or progressive games. The master node, which is typically a workstation or mainframe, communicates with all of the nodes that comprise the network. Most or all of the remaining nodes in the network are usually hardware devices (e.g. concentrators) mounted within the gaming machines or the gaming machines. For example, many gaming machines include player tracking hardware which may transmit accounting and player tracking information to a master node. The gaming machine communicates with the player tracking device like another node even when it is mounted within the gaming machine. The player tracking hardware is usually physically mounted within the gaming machine but may be located outside of the gaining machine as well. Typically, gaming machine nodes and hardware nodes transmit information needed by the master node, receive information needed to provide a particular network service such as bonus or progressive game play, echo messages to the master node from other gaming machines and echo messages to from the master node to other gaming machines.
The hardware and communication infrastructure needed to provide the various network services including accounting, bonus game play and progressive game play are usually totally separate for each gaming service. For example, for a group of gaming machines bonus game play service may be provided by a first server, accounting may be provided by a another server, and progressive game play may be provided by yet another server (3 servers total). Further, each network service may be provided over a separate communication network. Complicating matters even further, the servers, gaming machines and other hardware in each network may employ different communication protocols requiring communication translators to convert from one communication protocol to another communication protocol. Typically, the translators are implemented as additional nodes in each network. Also, in some applications, the data from a number of gaming machines may be collected and integrated for transmittal to a server using concentrators.
From the above, it should be apparent that modern sophisticated network based gaming requires expensive hardware and communication infrastructure that must be separately installed and maintained for each game service. As a result, many of the gaming services described above are only implemented in large establishments such as casinos because only large establishments can afford the initial infrastructure costs and the continual maintenance costs associated with the gaming services. Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide gaming hardware that reduces the installation and maintenance costs associated with implementing gaming services including bonus game play, progressive game play and accounting.
Another disadvantage of the current approach to providing network services on a gaming network is that additional hardware and software associated with the various services greatly slows the data transmission rate. For example, on a gaming network with many gaming machines, multiple data concentrators, multiple communication translators and multiple servers, communication delays of up to 2-3 seconds commonly occur between certain gaming machines and a server providing a game service. For some applications, such large communication delays are unacceptable. For example, for bonus game play, large communication delays may allow players to time their game play to coincide with bonus events on the gaming machine. Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide simpler and more efficient gaming hardware that reduces communication delays in a gaming machine network.